


The Chestnut-Gatherer

by Zeke Black (istia)



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, M/M, Old West, POV Chris Larabee, POV Ezra Standish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-07-07
Updated: 2004-07-07
Packaged: 2017-10-02 06:10:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/istia/pseuds/Zeke%20Black
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ezra struggles with the burden of being what he is within a restrictive society.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Chestnut-Gatherer

The saloon was a haven from the late-morning bustle in the street outside. Sounds penetrated, but they were distanced enough not to be intrusive, or even need acknowledging. Townsfolk passed by on the boardwalk, but were mere shadows beyond the curtains on the lower half of the large windows. They consolidated into people for moments as they passed the batwing doors before fading into shadows once more. Like the rest of the town outside, they were ignorable.

Ezra Standish's world was exactly as he liked it: narrowed to no concerns but the quality of the whiskey in the glass at his elbow, the skills of the four men seated around the baize-covered table with him, and the feel of the cards in his hands. Nothing mattered but the sweet lures of risk and gain, the chance to pit the craft he'd practiced for a lifetime against a worthy competitor. Although he smiled and chatted amiably with all four of his companions, only one of them had his inner attention. The debonair man a decade or so his elder, with the manner and dress of a riverboat gambler, possessed the caliber to stir his blood like a hound scenting a fox. Ezra masked his interest with facile inclusive charm and watched as his only real opponent played the same game. The man's demeanor of general affability directed at all of them was so patently false that Ezra could only wonder at how blind their three companions were. The three gents in bowlers and sack suits appeared to believe they were fully involved in the hands being dealt and played. Ezra couldn't curb a grin as he talked and drank and exuded an expansive cheerfulness while actually focusing on the game he and his opposite number played.

He was in this state of exhilaration when he heard gunshots. They sounded distant and innocuous. The sound of a gun being fired was hardly a rare occurrence in a frontier town in the territories. At any previous time in his life, the faint commotion would probably not have encroached on his preoccupation at all since the shots posed no threat to himself. Thirteen months of acting in the peculiar role of one of the seven regulators in this dusty town had--despite his attempts to disregard the changes--altered him. He couldn't help lifting his head when the shots sounded, listening with both ears for further sounds of disturbance while keeping both eyes on the hand being played. When no other evidence of mayhem ensued, he turned mindfully back to the game.

He won the hand, lost the next, and directed the small pot into the hands of the gleeful oldest of the three sack-suited men. That small win made the other two determined to stick it out for their share of the luck, which meant larger pots for Ezra and his rival to split during the upcoming hands. All part of a good gambler's strategy. His blood sang as the chase for the wins notched up.

Distraction arrived in the form of Buck striding to the bar without looking to left or right. Ezra warred with himself, then folded and rose to join Buck.

"I heard shots. Am I needed for anything?"

Buck glanced down at him, but looked away as the keep returned with an unopened bottle of Red-Eye. Buck took it with a nod and turned back to Ezra.

"Nah. Nothing you can do now. Go on back to your game."

Buck turned and left, not appearing to hurry but long legs eating up the ground at a good pace. Ezra frowned as he returned to the table. Buck wasn't much of a drinker and didn't tend to go off with full bottles of whiskey. Still, it wasn't odd enough behavior to make him relinquish his game. Not a game with as enticing opposition as this one offered, rare in this backwater.

Five hours later, he and his opponent--and the three other gentlemen--brought their contest to an end in favor of seeking out a meal. He fingered the bills he'd collected as he headed for the stairs to his room and counted the day a most satisfying one. Not only had he made a tidy profit, but the challenge had let him exercise his skills to their utmost.

In his room, he squirreled the folded bills neatly down inside his boot with the rest of his capital. After washing his face and retying his cravat, he donned a fresh coat and went to the hotel for a leisurely mid-afternoon meal. Afterwards, he sat in a chair on the boardwalk outside the saloon and alternately composed a letter to his mother, read further in Mr. Whitman's recently published _Memoranda During the War_, and formulated plans to go to Kletterson for a short break. His invigorating encounter with an adept craftsman had whet his appetite for more such interactions. His thoughts drifted off as he considered how he might inveigle some company on the trip.

When the late fall twilight drew in and the air cooled, he went inside. He had a light supper and played some hands of blackjack just to pass the time. He was somewhat surprised not to see any of the other lawmen in the saloon. Thinking back over the day as he played a game that required only a fraction of his concentration, he realized he'd seen none of the others since Buck's departure with the whiskey. It was an unusual enough occurrence to spark his interest, but not extraordinary enough to cause him concern. None of them lived regular lives or hours. It wasn't common to go half a day without encountering at least one of the others, but it wasn't unheard of. He wondered idly if any of them had had a day as satisfactory as his own, yawned, and excused himself for bed at midnight.

As he removed his guns and clothing and went automatically through his nighttime routine in his room, his mind drifted away again, this time to a more sultry night four months before....

"We shouldn't be doing this here."

Chris lifted his mouth from Ezra's throat and smiled down at him. "It's our room, bought and paid for. Since we grudgingly let Nathan have the single, we ain't got no reason not to be here. And unless I can make you scream--"

A nip of teeth near his left nipple made him growl and buck. Chris laughed against his chest, causing vibrations to tickle along his flesh. Ezra slid a hand around Chris's head, tenderness and amusement mingling with the sexual pleasure as Chris licked his nipple, then lifted his head to meet his eyes again.

"--no one's gonna know what we're doing."

Ezra grinned into the playfully challenging eyes. "And just what are we doing?"

He expected an indication of what kind of sex Chris had a hankering for this night. Chris rolled onto his back, pulling him to a lean against his side. When Ezra looked down, still smiling and expectant, Chris cupped his face with both hands. Chris's eyes were abruptly somber; not hard, but no longer dancing. Ezra's heart became thunder in his ears. Chris didn't look shadowed as he did when plagued with memories, but he was more serious than had become his wont when they had time together. He held Ezra's face captive, callused thumbs rubbing along his cheekbones.

When Chris finally spoke, his voice was also serious: "Celebrating."

Ezra kept the lock between their eyes as he brought his hands up and covered Chris's.

"Yes," he said, as though a question had been asked.

He twined his fingers with Chris's rougher ones, which twisted away from his face to return his hard clasp. The corners of Chris's mouth lifted. Ezra felt the energy singing between their anchoring grips as Chris pulled one of his hands down to press a kiss to it. Ezra leaned his cheek against their other pair of locked hands, never losing touch with Chris's gaze, exulting in the returned sparkle and laughing until Chris laughed in harmony as they tumbled into sexual play.

"Yes," Ezra murmured, grinning in memory of that night in Myersville as he dried his hands on a linen towel and turned away from the dresser with a stretch. He turned down the lamps on the wall sconces and climbed into bed, the image of Chris's laughing eyes lingering in his mind as he settled.

It gave him acute pleasure to see that light in Chris's eyes when they were alone together. He'd been gratified as well as relieved when Chris's wild streak had proven to include not only experience of, but a liking for carnal relations with men. Apart from the years with his wife, Chris hadn't lived a life that fell into conventional strictures. Once they were over the initial hurdle, it was a thrill when his covert looks at Chris in situations where no one would notice were returned with amused awareness. He'd happily left trails of bread crumbs until they established a routine of meeting whenever it was safe. Remembrance still sometimes darkened Chris's eyes when they were alone, but with less frequency as their snatched sexual moments had given way to planned meetings that allowed for more than merely shared orgasm.

His last thought as he relaxed into sleep was that it would be well worthwhile to try to wrangle an excuse for Chris to join him on an excursion to Kletterson.

:::::::

He went downstairs the next morning expecting to find one or two of his compatriots breaking their fast in the saloon, as was habitual. None of the other peacekeepers were present. He shrugged and poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot on the stove while waiting for Clarence to produce a plate of his rubbery eggs, over-crisped bacon, and burnt biscuits. How the man ever got a job as cook and keep in this place was a puzzle. Ezra entertained himself as he waited for his food thinking of the improvements he would institute when he had sufficient funds to buy the saloon. Clarence...well, he was a fair enough bartender; not the most reliable man, perhaps, but efficient enough as long as he was kept away from the stove. No wonder the place was half empty at mealtimes. He thought idly of the possibility of engaging a chuck wagon cook to look after meals, one who was between jobs or even ready to retire from the trail. He ran his thumb over his lower lip as he calculated the potential cost of hiring an experienced cook who was used to getting twice the wage of an ordinary cow puncher.

A harassed looking Clarence, with flour decorating his golden mustache, put a plate in front of him and left with the rapidity of a man who does not expect gratitude for his efforts. Ezra poked at a glutinous egg. His thoughts shifted from the expense of hiring a cook to happier reflections on the profits that would surely accrue if the saloon served palatable comestibles. If he could convince some aging Cookie that the benefits of working in a stable environment--rather than out of the back of a wagon constantly on the move and subject to the vagaries of weather and wildlife--outweighed a cut in pay, they could both benefit.

And, of course, he had no doubt he could effect just such a happy result for them both.

Replete more from pondering the bright future when the Standish Tavern became a reality than from the meal he'd consumed, Ezra left his plate on the bar and went outside with coffee mug and book. He settled in a chair on the boardwalk, ignoring the morning activity as the townsfolk went about their mundane business. He lost himself instead in the account of horrors more than a decade old that Mr. Whitman invested with ageless immediacy: "In one of the fights before Atlanta, a rebel soldier, of large size, evidently a young man, was mortally wounded in top of the head, so that the brains partially exuded. He lived three days, lying on his back on the spot where he first dropt. He dug with his heel in the ground during that time a hole big enough to put in a couple of ordinary knapsacks. He just lay there in the open air, and with little intermission kept his heel going night and day...."

"Morning, Ezra."

He blinked his eyes away from the vivid scene conjured on the page and looked up. Haloed by the sun grown brilliant in the eastern sky behind him, JD's darkened form conveyed a drooping weariness at odds with his usual perky demeanor.

"Good morning. You don't look terribly well rested this fine morning."

JD dropped onto the bench beside Ezra's chair and grimaced before a yawn took over his face. Finding himself staring into a gaping black hole, Ezra averted his eyes and hid a smile in his mug. He lifted his book and steeled himself to return to the world Whitman evoked all too well. JD's voice arrested his attention.

"I couldn't sleep much. I just kept thinking about what it'll be like if Chris.... You know."

"Hmm?" He looked up and studied the despondent young face. "If Chris--? What?"

Large dark eyes stared at him dispiritedly.

"You know. If he--you know."

"Son, you're going to have to work on your vocabulary. The same four words do not acquire extra meaning from being repeated. Repetition does not equal variety or concision." He cocked his head, appreciating the maxim he'd coined. "Repetition, in fact, is more likely to--"

"Hell, Ezra! You know what I mean! Why d'you always have to worry about words?" JD scrubbed a hand over his face.

Ezra lowered the book to rest on his knee. He took a closer look at his companion and noted the distress that underlay the tiredness.

"My apologies. But, in this case, I can truly say I am not following you."

"Well, maybe if you'd cared enough to come--"

JD jumped to his feet. For a moment, Ezra thought he was going to walk away, but JD went only to the edge of the boardwalk and leaned against a post. His hands and feet moved with ceaseless nervous energy. Some of the agitation made its way into Ezra's gut and tightened it uncomfortably.

JD turned his head to stare down the street to the south. His voice was hushed. "I just keep trying to think of what it'd be like around here without Chris."

Ezra's fingers tightened on the book.

"I mean, it's real hard to imagine this place without...." JD swallowed with painful clarity. "Without him," he whispered.

Ezra's mouth twitched into one of those smiles he couldn't quite control when he was upset. He fought against the confused panic roiling in his gut and making his skin prickle.

"Why should this place be without him?" He had to fight to keep his voice even. "I haven't heard he was planning to leave."

It couldn't be. Chris wouldn't-- Without at least telling him--

"Well, hell, I don't guess nobody plans on taking a bullet and dying!" JD's voice drooped with his shoulders. "Not even Chris Larabee."

Ezra was on his feet and moving before he managed to collect himself and turn back to JD.

"When?"

JD shook his head with a puzzled, questioning look.

"When was he shot?"

"Yesterday." JD's eyes widened and he straightened. "Heck, Ezra, you did know, didn't you?"

"Yesterday...." He remembered the poker game, the gunshots, and Buck. He made no effort to keep the sharpness from his voice. "Yesterday morning?"

Rage surged when JD nodded. The fury mingled with terror into a maelstrom. He turned on a heel and stalked up the street toward the clinic, the direction JD had been looking. JD knew. Buck obviously must have known. Nathan. He hadn't seen Josiah or Vin since-- Not since those gunshots. Late yesterday morning.

They all knew. Everyone had known except him. Chris had been shot nearly a full day ago and he was the only one who didn't know.

The only person no one thought it important to tell.

_Nah. Nothing you can do now. Go on back to your game._

His fists clenched, the right one cramping around the forgotten book. He glanced at it, then shoved it into his pocket. His rapid steps had carried him to the end of the boardwalk, down to the street, past stores and to the livery. The clinic stairs were ahead. His heart was pounding, his blood churning with fear, with anger, making a pulse throb in his temple. He veered around the bottom of the stairs and into the alley behind them. He couldn't go up there like this.

He leaned against the clapboard livery wall in the deep shadow cast by the Grain Exchange, focusing his will inside himself. The sounds of the people and animals in the street, the ring of Tiny's hammer against the anvil behind the livery, the cawing of a crow overhead faded until all he could hear was the thumping of his heart. He took deep, controlled breaths, muffling himself in a cloak of calmness until even his body's internal clamor diminished. It took a few more seconds to force steadiness into fingers that wanted to tremble. In little more than a minute, he moved back into the sunlight and up the stairs, a model of grave but detached concern.

An errant corner of his brain accorded another round of ironic thanks to his mother for her lessons on maintaining appearances--though she would never have imagined the purpose he would have found for them through all the years of his adulthood.

His knock on the clinic door was firm but quiet. He cocked his head, but all he could hear from within were some scuffling steps. In the infinity of stretched moments, he teetered between relief and fear at not hearing groans, cries, or other indication of a wounded man. Then the door opened and he looked up into Nathan's grim face and tamped the anxiety in his voice to what a man would be expected to show for a colleague and friend.

"How is Chris?"

Nathan's brows rose, the skepticism in his dark eyes at this tardy inquiry propelling Ezra into flurried explanation: "I just heard-- JD informed me...." He stumbled to a halt and licked his lips, returning to the only matter that counted. "How is Mr. Larabee doing?"

"I got the bullets out all right yesterday--"

Ezra's mind whited out at the plural, attention returning only at the tail end of Nathan's terse narrative.

"--infection."

"Infection?" He tried to deduce the whole of the possible future from Nathan's familiar yet unreadable features.

"Always a danger." Nathan broke off to glance behind himself.

Ezra tried to see inside past Nathan. Curtains were drawn across the windows against the sunlight; a single lamp gave the room a soft glow, but his eyes registered only dimness. He could feel heated air, knew the stove must be blazing, keeping water warm for treatment and guarding Chris from chills. He caught the scents of lamp oil and burning wood, and, under it all, the acrid tang of blood and sweat and sickness. A voice murmured something from the vicinity of the bed; Buck, he thought. He shifted to the side, trying to get a better view. He glimpsed the foot of the iron bedstead and a blanket-bundled roundness atop the bed, but then Nathan was turning back to him, already pushing the door shut.

He put a hand against it.

"What can I do to help? You look like you need sleep. I could sit with Chris--"

"We got everything covered," Nathan said, in a voice as heavy and tired as his face. "Buck and Vin are spelling me with sitting with him. Josiah and JD are doing the fetching and carrying."

Nathan nodded, polite as if he were dealing with any inquiring citizen, and again pushed at the door.

"But--" Ezra put a foot in the way, stopping the door. A quick nervous smile touched his mouth before he was able to quell it. "Surely there must be something I can do."

"If you wanna help, Ezra, look after the town. I don't need nobody else cluttering up this place."

"Well, if I could just see Chris for a moment, then, certainly, I'll be glad to do the duties in the--"

"There ain't nothing to see!" Nathan's voice was equal parts incredulity and impatience.

This time, Ezra didn't try to stop Nathan's shutting the door in his face. He stared at the weather-beaten boards for a moment, then slid his eyes closed. In the darkness, he smelled again the pervasive heaviness of blood, heat, and illness. His hands curled into fists at the helplessness that washed over him like a choking tide of effluvium. He sighed out a long exhalation and forced relaxation into his cramped fingers. There was no enemy to fight here except his own nature and the perils of bitch Chance. He'd done his best to subdue or avoid both of those adversaries for enough years to know they always won in the end.

He turned away and stepped across the narrow balcony to the railing. He pressed a hand onto it, drawing strength of a sort from the unyielding wood that dug into his palm. He looked half-blindly over the sun-wrapped town, barely registering the unaesthetic configurations of this place he'd more than once considered a prison.

And never more a prison than since finding in it an unanticipated, albeit furtive, freedom.

:::::::

As twilight approached hours later, Ezra gave a settling tug to his coat and left the quiet confinement of his room to face the din of the greater restrictiveness in the crowded saloon below. He wanted nothing more than to have this day over with. He'd spent portions of the interminable hours sitting outside the jailhouse, the lone occupant within sleeping off his previous night's drunk, intermingled with periods of driven wanderings through the streets.

A feral strand of vengefulness had drawn him to the door of the Undertaker's, but his desire to view the bodies of the men who shot Chris had withered and he'd turned away. They'd just be two envelopes of torn flesh with the spirits fled, different in no essential way from any other carcasses. He didn't even know which of the men had actually shot Chris; he didn't know if anyone knew for sure. Bullets had flown in an exchange of fire as two would-be bandits tried to escape after their ill-advised attempt to steal a lockbox intended for the stage. They both died, but too late. Too late to spare Chris; too late for Ezra's vengeance.

He'd fought the threatened shake in his hands by keeping them occupied with anything he could find to do, from shuffling his cards to mending harness, finding bittersweet solace in replacing a worn strap on a bridle he refused to think Chris might never use again.

Nothing could kill Chris Larabee. Not like this, not here. Not a bullet from a rowdy nobody, not infection and fever eating his strength, his fine body letting him down. Ezra was neither a fool nor young and naive, but as the hours of fear and uncertainty mounted, he faced the sick realization that he'd invested Chris with an allure of untouchability. He'd bought into the legend of Chris as a man able to buck any odds, defeat any foe: both those that warred inside his heart and mind and the physical ones without.

As he descended the stairs, he saw Josiah sitting at a table against the north wall. He paused for a deep breath, then threaded his way through the supper crowd to slip into a chair at the table. Josiah's left hand was wrapped loosely around a shot glass. A bottle of Red-Eye was next to it, but it was three-quarters full. Josiah raised dull eyes and gave a somber nod of greeting.

Ezra managed a smile he was confident looked more natural than it felt and turned to signal the keep, who acknowledged him with a wave. Ezra flickered his eyes to Josiah, who had gone back to staring blankly at the table. Silence shrouded them. When a girl brought him a glass of rye, Ezra took a swallow and set the glass on the table with care to mask both his anxiety and his anger. Josiah wasn't going to give him any help, Devil take him.

"So, how is Chris doing tonight?"

Josiah's pale eyes lifted to his and just stared for a long moment, as though he weren't sure what the question meant. He looked as though he'd barely slept since Chris was shot. It might be true, if he'd been helping Nathan throughout, or it might just be his age showing as it rarely did. Josiah was stronger than most men and hardened from years of adversity, but he no longer had the resilience of youth JD could draw on, to miss hours of sleep and show little effect. Then the veil cleared from Josiah's eyes and the vital intelligence showed, banishing the uncomfortable sense of decline and giving Ezra back the capable Josiah he knew and depended on.

"Not doing so well." Josiah emptied his glass in a single swallow and refilled it from the bottle. "The fever won't let go. Soon as Nathan thinks he's beaten it, it rises again. Been rising and falling all day. Last night, too. Seems likely to be the same tonight."

Ezra licked his dry lips and sought words that would garner him information without revealing his emotional turmoil. "I thought Nathan had extracted the bullets safely. Surely it shouldn't be so difficult to clean the wounds."

"Nathan's doing what he can, and more." The censure was mild, but there.

"Of course. I have no doubts on that score." He took another sip of his whiskey. "It's just--"

"The bullet hole in his leg's doing all right. The one that went through his side is giving the problems. Nathan thinks the bullet must have carried material from Chris's shirt and jacket deep inside. It didn't touch anything but muscle, but infection's taken hold in it."

Leg and side. He hadn't even known where Chris was shot. He clenched the glass in a suddenly sweaty hand as a picture of Chris marked red with wounds on leg and abdomen flooded his mind. He fought away a shudder and drained the glass.

He had to clear his throat before he could trust his voice to be even. "You look worn out, Josiah. I'll go and offer my services."

Even as he was standing, Josiah spoke: "No need. Buck, Vin, and I are taking turns tending him and JD's helping out. Nathan's shown each of us what he needs us to do; I don't reckon he's in a mood to go through it all again."

"Well, I'm sure it doesn't take genius or much training to spell someone sitting with a sick man." He hoped Josiah couldn't hear the acid in his voice that sounded barbed and clear in his own ears. He gave a quick disarming smile just in case, but Josiah didn't look up from the scarred tabletop.

He squared his shoulders and turned away from Josiah's distant face.

"You could always pray, Ezra." Josiah's voice was weary and quiet, but held a tiny barb of its own.

He walked along the street with measured strides through the long shadows cast by the waning sun. He didn't hesitate at the foot of the clinic stairs this time. He went up them two at a time, but was halted at the first landing when he met Buck coming down at a much slower pace than his own. They contemplated each other, Ezra peering up and Buck down, but the naked surprise in Buck's eyes angered and galvanized him. He nodded curtly and moved to go around Buck.

"There's no point going up. He's sleeping at the moment and ain't up to visitors."

"I'm hardly a--" He snapped his mouth shut and continued in a smoother voice. "I've come to help. While sickroom duties aren't my forte, I'm not inexperienced with--"

"Jesus, Ezra, the last thing he needs is people hanging around looking at him like he's a prize hog! Chris is a real private person." Buck ran a hand through his thick hair, mussing it further. His fatigue and grief were palpable, his voice hoarse and unyielding under their weight. "We gotta...protect his dignity, if we can't do much else."

Ezra spoke over the hard drum of his heart. "I have no wish to demean Mr. Larabee. But you're all exhausted. If he's asleep, he won't even know I'm there in place of one of you."

He made to move on despite Buck's shaking head, but Buck caught his arm.

"Vin and JD're with him. Vin won't leave till Nathan spells him in a few hours, and JD'll fetch Nathan if he's needed sooner. I'm gonna get some supper and shut-eye, then I'll sit with him toward dawn, and Josiah after that. We got it covered. And he's used to us doing what's necessary for him, in the times when he knows. It'd embarrass him to be seen helpless like that by someone else. Just--" he let go of Ezra and gestured vaguely "--look after the rest."

His seething fury wanted to retort that Chris would be the least embarrassed to be intimately tended by him, and that he, Ezra, had the right to perform that service, more right than any of them but Nathan. His dread of losing Chris wanted to scream that he had a right to see Chris, to touch him, now more than ever when it might be the last chance he'd have to see and to touch, and they couldn't and shouldn't deny him.

But the dark thread of fear woven into his every fiber from his youth stopped him short. It was easier to step into a gunfight than to ignore the terror hound that yapped at his heels.

His head nodded in acquiescence without his volition. Buck nodded back and left, his tall frame stooped uncharacteristically as he went heavily down the stairs, his boots making a thud of each step that rang in Ezra's head. He looked up to the closed door. He stared for long seconds as though there might be a message forthcoming from the weathered planks. He could still go up. He glanced down; Buck was gone. He looked back up to the door. All he had to do was knock. Vin might let him in, if only for a moment. All he had to do was express his concern and Vin might pull the door wide enough open to allow him in or at least grant him a glimpse of Chris in the bed. Only Nathan and Buck had explicitly turned him away. There was no saying Vin would do the same or would see him as having no more rights than one of the townsmen.

He'd moved up five steps while reflecting, but the last thought brought him to a halt. Despair crushed down on him like the weight on Atlas's shoulders. Seeming to be nothing more to Chris than any other citizen was exactly how he must be seen. Even if Vin didn't think about the matter in the clutch of his overtaxed worry, mention of Ezra's pushing his way inside might reach Nathan or Buck, perhaps via some guileless remark of JD's if no other way. And that could spur probing thoughts he didn't dare risk.

Because, of course, appearances were all important. It was the way he and Chris had to live their lives, with the appearance of not mattering overly much to each other. The appearance of being merely work associates and mild friends. They'd back each other up in a fight; everyone took that for granted. They might even take a bullet, one of them for the other, if matters in the heat of battle fell out like that. But no one expected either of them to cry at the other's grave. Or hover over a sickbed.

Or deathbed.

It was a testament to how well he and Chris had camouflaged their relations that no one had thought to inform him when Chris was _in extremis_. He closed his eyes. Possibly _in extremis_. Only possibly. He squeezed his eyes painfully tightly together. Goddammit to hell.

:::::::

He returned to the saloon. Josiah was gone. He collected a bottle of whiskey, ran a professional eye over the prospects, and invited himself into the game that promised the most diversion. He played and drank with concentration, sinking into the mindlessness of estimating odds and dealing advantageous hands against players of only middling challenge. He made the most of them that he could, yet couldn't escape awareness of the panic beating at all sides of his palisade. He drank steadily, but didn't dare let slip all restraint while playing. He couldn't risk getting so drunk he made a mistake that brought guns into play. With sluggish responses, he might end up injured himself.

Chris needed all of Nathan's attention, all of everyone's.

He stayed until the last of his opponents gathered his meager winnings and excused himself with a smile and nod. Ezra managed a smile of his own that felt like a grimace but would look natural, he knew, after his years of practice in projecting what he wished and to hell with what he was feeling. The saloon was emptying, on the verge of closing; he'd find no further distraction here tonight. With the need to retain a modicum of sobriety gone, he downed several quick drinks. Standing unsteadily, he gathered his winnings and went upstairs with a full bottle.

He shut the door of his room and slumped back against it, leached of energy now there were no eyes to see him, no need to maintain his pretense of normality. When he forced himself upright, he frowned at a moment of vertigo. He realized he was more inebriated than he'd thought when he tossed his hat toward the post on the bed's footboard and it missed, sailing gracefully over the end of the bed to disappear into the darkness. It landed on the floor with a skittery sound like a mouse running on the boards. He couldn't remember the last time his aim had been off...oh, yes. The unpleasant business that had culminated in a skinny eighteen year old dancing frantically at the end of a noose, his pimpled face awash with tears, his pants wet with his fear, death announcing itself at last with the stink of the boy's bowels loosening. Chris had ridden out immediately after doing his duty by standing beside the Judge to ensure the hanging proceeded without interference. Ezra had gotten drunk. What else was there to do, after all?

He put the bottle on the bedside table with miscalculated force. He started at the loud thump, then giggled as he turned up the lamp just enough to create a small pool of light to see by. He removed his coat and dropped it haphazardly over the arm of the rocking chair. Ridding himself of the derringer rig was a relief; he rubbed at the ache in his arm where the straps and metal would have chafed red spots on his skin right through his sleeve. He pulled off his silk sleeve garters and flipped them one after another over his shoulders. It took two tries to get his gunbelt off. The first time, he was confounded when he'd unbuckled it and yet it wouldn't detach from his leg. He giggled again when he remembered the need to untie the cord at the bottom of his holster from around his thigh. Finally, there were only his boots to be dealt with. Ending up on his knees when he attempted to stand on one leg to remove them, he hauled himself up and crawled onto the bed. To hell with boots, dirt, bedclothes.

He wrestled his pillows into position against the headboard and leaned back, grabbing the bottle and cradling it against his chest. The chill in the room was in his fingers and raising gooseflesh on his arms inside the shirt. Winter was near. He'd spent the long summer sweltering inside his layers of clothing and now the approaching winter promised to freeze him. He envied Chris's self-granted freedom from the encumbrances of social expectation. Chris rarely wore a vest and only bothered with an undershirt when he needed it for warmth. What would be censured as scandalous undress in most men was accepted as an eccentricity in a man who was a force unto himself like Chris Larabee.

Though the salient point, really, was just how Chris and Buck and the others stood the itch from the woolen union suits they donned when it got cold. Perhaps it was something one had to become inured to in childhood. Maude had always favored muslin or--during penurious interludes--flannel underapparel. He grinned as he thought of the look on her face should she ever see him bundled up in long handles. Bad enough to have joined the ranks of the honestly employed, but to adopt their methods of dress as well...! He contemplated his dusty boots. Wearing his boots in bed surely numbered him among the uncouth, but at least his feet were warm. He dragged the quilt and blankets up from the other side of the bed and tucked them around himself. He shouldn't be this cold; it wasn't winter yet. An autumn night shouldn't chill him so. Not even one that followed a day of too little food and too much alcohol and the incessant numbing fear of loss.

He uncorked the bottle after a brief struggle and swallowed fine single malt with scant appreciation of its silken bite. It might as well have been water or, Lord help him, Red-Eye. Despite his concerted efforts, he was still too sober. He had no trouble recognizing the irony of being caught in the unmanning fear of losing something he'd never expected to have in his entire life....

Chris had been alone in the livery when Ezra gathered his nerve. Chris didn't look around, but Ezra had no doubt the gunman knew exactly who was approaching him from behind. He'd deduced early in their association in the Seminole village that Chris's awareness of his surroundings at all times was as key to his survival as his facility with a gun. He took pleasure now from Chris's unconcern at his approach.

It was the supper hour and the place was deserted. He'd watched Nathan head with Josiah to the restaurant, so knew the clinic upstairs was also devoid of possible eavesdroppers. There was only one listener whose reaction he had to worry about. His stomach was uneasy, but he believed he was prepared for all contingencies.

Chris acknowledged him with a nod when Ezra came into his view. Ezra had meant to speak his piece immediately and get it over with, but was distracted when he let himself look at Chris's hands. He was cleaning his harness. Dirt was ground into the creases of Chris's knuckles and rimmed his nails, gleaming under a film of oil that highlighted the compelling beauty of the large, masculine hands. As Chris's strong fingers manipulated the black leather straps, Ezra's breath grew short and he felt the damnable stirring in his blood that was the cause of his being here at this moment. The stirring he'd failed to quell and had finally acknowledged wouldn't loose its grip but was forcing him to act once again.

"Something I can do for you?"

The casual voice diverted his eyes from Chris's hands and his thoughts from their well-trodden and bitter path.

"Yes," he said quickly, then frowned. "No. I mean--" He drew a steadying breath and looked squarely at Chris, who wasn't looking at him. "I was thinking perhaps there was something we could do for each other."

Chris merely raised his eyebrows with a glance at him before focusing again on his task.

He cleared his throat and dredged up his rehearsed speech. "With Mr. Wickes' recent demise and his tent town of courtesans scattered to the winds, it seems unlikely even the ranchers' influence will be sufficient to bring about a replacement situation. Mrs. Travis's vocal objections, and the backing she has from other, uh, upstanding citizens, is likely to be an insurmountable obstacle to any attempt to--"

"Ezra, if this is about some scheme you've thought up to make money setting up a whorehouse, I ain't interested."

"A whorehouse?" He was mildly insulted. "Why would I want to take on the thankless burden of housing, feeding, and protecting a collection of disease-ridden strumpets while dealing with the harangues of moralistic citizens on one hand and the greed of men like Royal on the other? Do I look like that much of a fool?"

"Lydia and her girls weren't diseased."

He didn't blunt the tartness he felt: "Most of them were too young and new to the trade for its nefarious effects to have caught up with them yet." He'd tried to offer them another option--with monetary compensation for his time and effort, naturally. Marriage didn't guarantee immunity from disease--as numerous wives of soldiers in the War Between the States could attest in the years since their men came home with more than battlefield scars--but it at least reduced the odds.

"Yeah," Chris said quietly.

Chris walked past him, returning the harness and oil to their places. He wiped his hands on a rag, working it around and between each finger in turn, one after the other. Ezra dragged his eyes away and cast about for the thread of his interrupted spiel.

"As I was saying, it's liable to be inconvenient for you from now on for the duration of your stay here. You appear not to share Buck's ease in making use of the saloon girls, preferring, I've gathered, to seek obviation of your needs beyond the town limits."

Chris looked up to stare at him. His fingers slowed their stroking of his hands. Ezra squared his shoulders and met Chris's eyes with the semblance of poise his years of trained control allowed him.

"Since my own...needs...are equally difficult to satisfy, it seemed reasonable to suggest that we could perhaps help each other."

Amusement enlivened Chris's handsome features. "Hell, Ezra, you sound like you're propositioning me."

Chris laughed, but it died when Ezra managed only a twitch that barely turned up the corners of his mouth before fading. Chris's hands dropped to his sides; the dirty rag in his left one made a pale splotch against his black pants. Ezra wanted to fix on it, to look only at that innocuous bit of cloth, but he forced himself to keep meeting Chris's gaze. Chris stared for a moment, then dropped his eyes slowly down the length of Ezra's body as though he'd never seen him before. Ezra stood still, grateful for once for the fear that accompanied being what he was: it had scotched his incipient arousal as effectively as ice water.

Chris surveyed him to his feet, then reversed direction to scan slowly back up his body. "Jesus," he whispered, when their eyes met again.

"I'm ready to leave."

He lifted his saddlebags into clear view. He noted Chris's eyes narrowing as he gauged their fullness for the first time, then looked at the thick bedroll under his arm. Ezra had learned long ago it was best to allow a man options regarding how he should be treated on the occasions when he failed to curb his weakness and made an approach. He didn't think Chris would beat him senseless before throwing him out of town and he knew Chris wouldn't shoot him. But Chris might well be glad to accept his offer to immediately--and permanently--remove himself. A few of the more decent men he'd dealt with had.

He allowed himself a brief bitter laugh before reassuming his composure. "The thirty days I signed on for with Judge Travis have passed. I'm not legally constrained from leaving, and I find myself too...." He shrugged, lifting the heavy saddlebags and letting them fall with a jar to his arm. "Since it would be too taxing to stay here under the circumstance I find myself in, I intended to leave any--"

He flinched to a stop as Chris moved suddenly. Rather than coming toward him, though, Chris leaned back against the wall. He crossed his arms over his chest, no trace remaining of the tension his whipcord body had radiated moments before. "No need to be hasty, I reckon."

He'd never thought of Chris as a cruel man. A hard one, yes, but not a man who inclined to deliberate meanness. He blinked with uncertainty as he considered the provocative pose. With his shoulders resting against the wall, hips thrust slightly forward, and long legs set apart displaying the fullness at his groin inside the tight duck pants, Chris had to know what he was doing. He pulled his eyes away and looked up. He saw caution and speculation in Chris's eyes, but not aversion or anger. And was that a hint of a leer?

Chris's voice was lighter than he expected. "You said something about helping each other."

"Did I?" Hope bloomed along with the delicious thrill usually available to him only through pulling off a con or winning against a worthy gambling adversary.

Chris quirked a grin and pushed away from the wall. He stopped a pair of feet from Ezra, not near enough to look odd if stray eyes should see, but close enough for Ezra to feel the heat of his body, pungent with sweat and oil, and hear the husky voice pitched low for his ears only.

"I figure we should talk about this some before you make up your mind. I'm going to supper now. I'll be in my room afterwards."

Chris pushed his lank hair back from his face, took his hat from a nail on the post, and put it on. He nodded and left, his spurs sounding a jingling song of his retreating presence long after the dirt street muffled his booted steps.

And easy as that--relatively speaking--they'd started more than a year ago on a road neither of them had expected to lead them where it did. Ezra managed to put the bottle onto the bedside table after a couple of misses and huddled into his cocoon of blankets. If he'd thought he could make it across the room without falling over his feet, he'd fetch his coat. Or all his coats. Anything to fight this cold that neither whiskey nor thick covers had done a damn thing to combat.

He closed his gritty eyes and settled deeper into his pillows. At some vague point, he drifted into uneasy sleep, jerking awake near dawn from a dream. He managed to still his shuddering, but couldn't banish the image of Chris lying on a field, his head a bloody ruin, his spurs jingling as his heels dug incessantly at the ground while a pit spread beneath him and inexorably sucked him down.

:::::::

He rose early, but took his time dressing. His hand had developed a tremor that demanded extra care in shaving. He avoided meeting his eyes in the mirror; a single glance into their haunted depths had been enough. When he opened the closet door to choose a coat, his eyes fixed on the black one for long moments in which his breath came short. He turned his head away and snatched another from its hanger, seeing only when he'd shut the door that he was holding the bottle green one. It would do. He chose a muted, gray- and black-checked vest and eased his arms into the coat, wincing at a stiffness in his shoulders he hadn't been able to stretch away. All his limbs ached as though he'd spent the night in a frantic race, pumping his arms and legs while fleeing some unseen enemy.

When he finished his toilet, he looked in the cheval-glass. Blinking away the shadows in his eyes and ignoring the ones under them, he thought he would pass muster. He looked sleek and insouciant, the image of a man without burdens to mar his day. Placing his hat on his head, he touched a finger to its tip-tilted brim in mocking salute, squared his shoulders, and left his room.

He purchased a bottle of whiskey from Clarence and strode to the clinic. He would see Chris this morning. There was no earthly reason why he shouldn't. Good Lord, he worked with the man. Had worked with him for over a year. Survived with him and the others gunbattles, cannon fire, miscreants of variable ingenuity, the petty carping of townsfolk, being dislodged by a federal marshal, each others' foibles, and periods of stultifying boredom, heat, and rain. It was only natural he would be anxious about Chris.

No one could possibly read into it an unnatural interest. If he was unnatural, what did that make Vin and Buck? And Josiah; though Josiah helped out at need for Nathan's sake as much as the patient's, and whoever the patient was. And JD, well, anyone less likely to be seen as unnatural than JD couldn't be imagined and JD was haunting the clinic.

His step faltered with a resurgence of the old insidious fear that if anybody were to be seen as unnatural, no matter how he behaved, it would be him. He well knew that, like many fears, this one wasn't rational. He'd assimilated the belief when he was younger, and far less innocent, than JD. He just couldn't ever quite manage to free himself of it, hard as he tried to tilt his intellect against his emotions.

He was brought up short as he almost stepped on a broom moving dust with vigorous strokes across the worn boards of the walkway. He looked up at Mrs. Potter, registering her friendly smile as she paused in her work. He watched the smile waver in the moments before he gathered his thoughts and produced a smile and a breezy greeting. He noted the puzzled look that crossed her round face as he touched his hat and moved on, but dismissed it, refusing to dwell on what it might mean, what he might inadvertently have let slip to spark it. He looked perfectly natural and his behavior couldn't be construed as anything else but natural.

The confidence he enforced carried him up the stairs and to the clinic door. He hesitated then, considering merely rapping once and walking in. Even if Nathan expelled him, he might at least get a chance to see Chris first. Decisive behavior was, after all, the best way to bull one's way into any forum whatsoever, as every grifter knew. Mind made up, he lifted his hand and knocked once, sharply, enough to be heard but hopefully not enough to disturb the patient.

Though it would be reassuring if Chris were awake enough to be disturbed.

He was reaching for the knob, his body already beginning its forward motion, when the door was snatched open. Nathan loomed over him. Balked of immediate entrance, he looked up into Nathan's haggard face, seeing raised eyebrows and an impatient look. Ezra held up the bottle.

"I thought perhaps you could make use of this."

Nathan made no move to take it. "Jim over at Digger Dave's sent a bottle over. Anyway, I'm using carbolic salve and aconite."

Ezra let the hand holding the bottle drop to his side and moved his foot forward tentatively. The room was as dim as before behind Nathan. Over-warm air wafted out at him like a dog's fetid breath. He couldn't hear anything except the creak of a chair. His heart thudded. "And how is he doing this morning?" For a slender man, Nathan presented a solid obstacle; he couldn't see past him at all.

"'bout the same except weaker. Fever's rising and falling, drawing away his strength. Need to get it broken before it breaks him."

Ezra leaned forward, preliminary to moving inside. "Perhaps I could--"

"I gotta go, Ezra. We're trying to get that fever down. We'll let you know when there's--" Nathan shrugged, looking unhappily helpless "--change." He reached suddenly behind himself and came up holding a bucket. "If you wanna help, could you get rid of these? Thanks." He shoved the bucket into Ezra's hands, giving him only enough time to shift the bottle to a grip under his arm, nodded affably, if in a preoccupied manner, and shut the door.

Ezra stared at the sun-bleached wood inches from his nose. Well, great. Oh, yes, he handled that just wonderfully. He'd conned his way onto Mississippi riverboats, into Eastern hippodromes, New Orleans casinos, and Chicago gentlemen's clubs, yet he was incapable of getting inside the door of a frontier healer's paltry little clinic.

He felt irrationally as though he were failing Chris through his own inability to force matters to go his way. Sickroom duties were not among his favored activities, but in this case he not only would but desperately wanted to help. Anything if only it meant he could see Chris, touch him, stand beside him in this particular battle and help him fight.

He turned away, unable to see a means of pushing himself to Chris's side without revealing more than was safe. Becoming aware of a smell rising from the bucket, he looked into it. A tangle of stained rags and bandages filled the bottom, like a nest of white snakes striped with blood and pus.

Footsteps on the stairs startled him out of his reverie. He looked up as Mary Travis's pale head hove into view. Grasping the bucket with one hand, he let it fall to his side, hiding the contents with his thigh, and stepped courteously aside as she gained the balcony. She was carrying a tray with covered dishes on it.

She looked at him with a wan smile. "Good morning, Ezra."

"Mrs. Travis." Hands full of bottle and bucket, he nodded his head rather than tipping his hat.

He went down the stairs as she passed him. Pausing when he reached the switchback landing, he looked up just as Nathan opened the door. Unable to hear their quiet voices, he watched as though at a pantomime as Mary offered the tray. Nathan took it and stepped back, inviting her inside with a tilt of his head. She entered and the door shut, its weathered exterior presenting its impenetrable barrier.

Anger cresting, he hurried down the rest of the stairs and walked briskly through the livery to Tiny's smithy at the back. The place was deserted, but the forge fire burned hotly. He dumped the contents of the bucket onto the flames, dropped the bucket to the ground, and left.

A quick walk around the town didn't take even the edge off his restlessness. The place was full of placid bustle as people went about their daily activities. Feeling nauseated with the tangle of emotions filling him, he turned on his heel when he reached the Clarion office and retraced his steps. He shoved the bottle he was still holding into his saddlebag and saddled his horse. Within half an hour of leaving the clinic, he was galloping out of town.

He slowed his pace once he was free of the town's suffocating confines. He meandered on the north road, with a place to go but no reason to get there in a hurry. He fished out his hip-flask and took the first of what he intended to be a good many drinks. The bourbon burned his throat comfortably.

A ride that usually lasted about an hour took closer to two. He paused when he reached his destination, staying mounted as he looked at the shack, corral, and small cleared area that comprised the entire place so far. Chris's land, Chris's handiwork. He hadn't realized the need in Chris to put down roots of sorts, even if they proved temporary; the need to build up something for himself in a world that had destroyed his previous efforts. He hadn't known that core of stability survived in the sometimes wild Chris who still mourned his family with bouts of universe-hating fury. He hadn't learned that facet of Chris's nature until the day Chris first brought him out here.

As far as he knew, he was still the only person who knew about this part of Chris's life. Chris spoke his feelings not in words, but in gestures such as this, offering gifts to those astute enough to read them. He was a master of apparently casual acts rich with undertones of meaning.

"I'm riding out of town. Just overnight." Chris pausing beside him in the saloon, leaning sideways, hip against the bar, eyes roaming around the trouble-free room. He'd looked at Chris, doing his own assessment. Chris wouldn't tell him his plans if there weren't a reason, and the reason wouldn't be looking after the town in his absence. For that, he'd alert Vin, or Josiah if Vin wasn't in town. He probably already had.

"Leaving soon?"

"Yup. North road."

Chris pushed away from the bar without once looking at him and walked out, long strides making those big spurs clink. Chris hadn't just wanted to let him know he'd be out of town, then. Ezra grinned inside, excitement curling in his belly even while he turned a bland face to the world.

He'd waited half an hour, then left via the western side of town, circling around and catching up to Chris at a lope several miles to the north. Chris smiled under his wide hat brim as he geed his horse from its walk into a matching pace. And they'd ended up here.

Ezra left his saddlebags hanging over the corral fence with the rest of his gear except for the bottle, which he took inside. He halted inside the door, letting his eyes adjust to the muted light that penetrated the small windows. He inhaled the scent of new wood and kicked aside a curled shaving on his way to the small, rough table. He set the bottle down next to Chris's wooden tool box with a thump that cracked in the quiet, took a breath, and looked around.

The shack was little more than a shell so far. Chinks of light showed through gaps in the planks. Chris wouldn't be staying out here in any kind of steady way for quite some time--if ever--so there was no urgency to get the boards calked for winter. He took five measured steps away from the table. The stove would go here; Chris had already gone so far as to talk of ordering one. He imagined a squat black iron stove, heavy and ponderous, dominating the simple room and reeking of settledness and permanence. Whether Chris's possibly wanting to stay in this vicinity was a good thing or a bad, Ezra wasn't sure. But that Chris had wanted to share this place with him before anyone else--there was no doubt about the value of that act.

He grabbed the bottle and crossed the small space to the north-east corner. The bedstead was nothing more than raw boards nailed together, with planks forming a base for the thin, lumpy pallet. In contrast to the plans for getting a stove, the bed was an artifact of transience. It had been constructed for utility, not beauty or even--as Ezra had seen fit to observe, to Chris's offhanded amusement--the barest comfort.

"It gets you off the floor," Chris had told him, pinning him to said lumpy mattress with a knee imposed between his thighs and pressing against his groin with just enough force to be tantalizing, "and away from the drafts and dirt. Ain't got nothing to complain about." And his mouth descended to the sensitive spot at the base of Ezra's throat and all complaints were shelved--for the duration.

Ezra sank heavily down onto the side of the bed and uncorked the bottle. He'd emptied his flask on the ride, but the bottle was full. He looked at the label. Highland Pure Rye was Chris's favorite tipple when he was feeling in an expansive mood; the rest of the time, Red-Eye did him fine. This particular bottle wouldn't benefit Chris as intended, but it would be sheer waste to ignore an excellent whiskey. Chris would agree with that sentiment. He put the bottle to his mouth and tilted his head back to take a long swallow.

Swallows followed each other over the next couple of hours. Each was a burn in his throat yet none had an appreciable damping effect on his temper and its shadow, fear. His drinking slowed with barely a third of the bottle consumed. He moved away from the bed with its memories of tenderness. He walked around and about the room, nurturing echoes of Chris's laughter, Chris's voice, Chris giving him the gift of sharing this place with him: a hideout where Ezra could relax his guard, put aside worry and watchfulness and the restraint he'd forced onto himself years ago.

He stood by the table and touched the rough-hewn tool box with its open compartments and blocky handle. Chris had built a house once before, a large one with a solid stone foundation and several rooms, wrought for comfort and stability and protection. For all the good it had done. Ezra flicked the handle of a mallet so it fell against the side of the box with a clunk, and turned away. Dust drifted in a fall of sunlight from the window in the south wall that illuminated the spare lines of Chris's new endeavor. This shack was raised with no such enduring solidity in its structure or perhaps even its intention. Yet some quality in Chris drove him to clear away wilderness and build a place from nothingness without a family, or even any surety about the future, to do it for anymore.

Fierce pride swelled in him for Chris's bravery in refusing to admit he was beaten. The physical courage with which Chris faced guns and opponents had built his reputation, but it was nothing compared to this dogged, private endurance.

As the sun moved in the sky, the rays angling in the windows lit on a shirt hanging from a peg on the wall opposite, drawing his attention. It looked like the black Longhorn bib shirt Chris was wearing when they met and used during their stay with the Seminoles. The sun glinted on a metal button on the bib. More than a year ago now. An entire year.

He found himself across the room without being aware of moving, his face pressed into the cotton fabric. Chris used it as a work shirt now. He absorbed the stale scents of horse, tobacco, and Chris's sweat, a masculine brew that went straight to his groin despite his tiredness and anguish. This was what he was. This is what set him apart from other men. Ordinary men were sexually moved by the sight and smells of women. But he...he couldn't control his body's response to maleness. Never had been able to. He'd learned with the years only how to hide his reflexes, never a way to defeat the enemy within.

With a roar of fury and hate, he smashed the bottle into the wall next to his head. The heavy glass broke in chunks that clattered to the floor as whiskey soaked his arm and spattered Chris's shirt and his head. The shock of his precipitous action froze him for a moment, then a bubble of hysterical laughter overtook him. He lifted his face out of the shirt and stared at the empty stump of the bottle in his hand. What an insane waste of an expensive rye. Neither Chris nor his mother--for entirely different reasons--would approve. He hiccupped with another laugh and staggered away from the wall.

:::::::

He hung his coat over the fence in the sun until it was fit to wear, then ambled back to town. The heavy wool was still damp and would need laundering, but he'd washed his face, combed his hair, and brushed down his clothes. He assumed he looked presentable enough to pass muster. Chris's shack counted among its many lacks a mirror. Chris never worried about how he looked or what people might think of him, caring only for how he perceived himself, behaving only according to his own code.

And damn his eyes that even at his most unkempt, Chris was still far too appealing. At least to a man of Ezra's proclivities--and a wide variety of women.

One against the competition of many. He was too drained to indulge in another bout of sardonic laughter. He'd thought his situation was bad in the years before his arrival in Four Corners on a fateful day. Before then, all he'd had to contend with was sexual desire for men he usually didn't dare approach and dread expectations on the rare occasions when he did. He'd moved on continually, minimizing the danger of possibly revealing himself and sparking unpleasant consequences while also putting distance between himself and temptation. Now, though, he was held fast in a vise of his own making: he'd allowed himself to become emotionally entangled. He knew Chris felt affection for him as well, burgeoning recently beyond the caring he had for the other members of their strange little band. He seemed to divert and irritate Chris in almost equal portions; it had taken him some months to realize Chris enjoyed the flux.

"You ain't boring," was the sum of Chris's pronouncements on the subject. And, no, he certainly didn't believe he was anything as mundane as boring. He'd had a moderately good, if spotty, education. He could converse on a variety of topics at great length and did so frequently. The fact that Chris rarely bothered to listen had curiously little effect on the pleasure both of them got from these intervals.

"Are you, by any remote chance, listening to me?"

"Nope."

Flinging up a hand that inadvertently sent an ashpan flying to the floor, spilling cheroot butts in its wake and making Chris's mouth twitch, he'd said, "Then why, pray tell, are you letting me exhaust myself by relating in detail a matter which is clearly of no interest to you?" He'd wanted to rake a hand through his hair in frustration, but appearances forbade. He settled instead for glaring across the saloon table at his vexatious companion.

"You got a pretty voice, Ezra. It's all right to listen to. And it's restful, with you making all the effort." Chris's low rasp was barely discernible in the noise, but the lazy tease came through.

He'd been flummoxed, torn between being flattered that Chris liked his voice and outrage that Chris got more from his voice than from what he had to say. An unholy gleam in Chris's eyes had drawn reluctant answering humor from him and his mood had undergone one of those quicksilver changes Chris also seemed to like. They'd retired early that night, going in their separate directions before Chris joined him in his room via the saloon's shadowed back stairs.

Chris also enjoyed hearing his voice during sex.

"Damn you, Chris," he muttered as he approached the edge of town. Damn Chris to perdition and beyond for being possibly the best, or possibly the worst, thing ever to happen to him.

The sun was low in the sky when he finished caring for his horse in the livery. He steeled himself, tugged his vest straight, and walked up the stairs to the clinic. His steps slowed when he reached the balcony. JD was sitting on the bench outside, his jacket off and shirt sleeve pushed up. Vin was leaning over him, holding JD's arm at an angle out from his body and washing the back of his bicep with a cloth. A bowl of reddish water sat on the bench between them. They both looked at him with flat eyes and expressionless faces when he stopped beside them. His stomach sank.

"What happened?"

JD wrinkled his nose and Vin gave him a hard once-over before turning back to his task. "You fall into a barrel of Red-Eye on your travels, Ezra?"

"I-- No." He'd wanted only to get his coat dry enough to look decent, not troubling with trying to wash out the whiskey. Shame washed over him for having left town for the day with thought for nothing but his own pain. "JD, are you all--"

The door opened. Nathan paused at seeing him, then pulled the door shut and turned to JD. He shook out a folded bandage as he inspected the cut. "Thanks, Vin. Looks good and clean. I don't think it needs stitching; I'll just bandage it up."

Vin nodded and went inside. Ezra stepped forward, following him with his eyes. Nathan's voice brought him to a halt.

"I thought you were gonna help look after the town, Ezra."

Ezra glanced at him, but Nathan's attention was on JD as he spread a salve on the cut, then wound the bandage around JD's arm.

"What happened?"

"It was just a little brawl in the saloon." JD shrugged his good shoulder, his head turned to watch Nathan. "It wasn't anything. I handled it fine."

"And got a knife in your arm. And a lot of complaints from Clarence about more damage to the saloon than there should've been with the bunch of us supposedly looking out for this place." Nathan turned his head to look at Ezra. "Buck's sleeping, Vin and me was here, and Josiah's gone out to the Armstead farm because Ned's mother-in-law's dying and asked for him. JD had to handle it on his own 'cause you weren't around. If that cowboy'd pulled a gun instead of a knife--"

He wasn't sure what his face showed, but JD took one look at him and turned away, saying quickly, "I'm all right, Nathan. It wasn't that much of a fight. Clarence's shotgun scared the pepper out of most of 'em."

Nathan tied off the bandage. JD grimaced as he pulled his sleeve down, but managed a strained version of his usual bright smile as he stood and put his jacket on. Ezra watched the blood-stained sleeve disappear from sight.

"I gotta get to the jail. Got three of them yahoos locked up. They'll be needing water and their suppers. Thanks, Nathan."

JD clattered down the stairs. Nathan picked up the bowl and turned to the door.

"How is Chris?"

Nathan's face was gray-tinged with exhaustion. He shook his head. "Fever's rising again with evening coming. We have to get it broke soon or...." His voice trailed off as he stared across the rooftops, his dark eyes distant and unfocused.

"I want to see him. Just for a moment. Or I could help."

Nathan sighed. "He ain't up to visitors or talking. And the last thing I need is a drunk stumbling around in there. Get sobered up and help JD."

"I'm not--"

The door shut quietly but firmly in his face. He closed his eyes and dropped his head. He wasn't drunk. He wasn't a sight-seer. His concern did not matter less than Mary Travis's.

:::::::

After changing his clothes, he spent the rest of the evening keeping an eye on the town and the needs of the inmates in the jail, freeing JD to sleep and eat or do whatever it was that kept the young man's exuberant energy at its high pitch. He avoided both food and whiskey himself, living on cups of coffee until the saloons closed and he adjourned to his room for another night of chill, dream-ridden snatches of sleep. A night that seemed eternal finally ended with the late dawn. He took his coat and Chris's bib shirt to the laundry, checked on the men in the jail--two snoring fit to raise the roof and the third pissing into a bucket--and went to the saloon. A cup of coffee would hopefully shift his headache and sustain him for another trip to the clinic--and the news he might hear.

Buck and Josiah were eating breakfast together at a table. It was such a normal event that he was startled. He stopped in his tracks and stared until his brain caught up and he crossed the room. They both looked tired, but greeted him with nods. He got a mug of coffee from the bar and joined them.

"Gentlemen. How are things this morning?"

"Well," Josiah said, putting his fork down on his empty plate and wiping his mouth, "old Mrs. Evans had a difficult passing. It's never easy watching a person die, but when they suffer so before they go, it makes it doubly hard on everybody."

Ezra held on to his equanimity with a struggle. "I'm sorry to hear that. Perhaps her family will get comfort from feeling it was a blessed release." His voice was more caustic than he'd intended and he mentally flinched when Buck and Josiah both stared at him. He cleared his throat. "And Chris?"

Buck's grin lit up the entire room. "Fever broke an hour or so before dawn. The old dog's beat the odds again. He's gonna be all right."

Relief flooded him like an opiate, weakening his limbs and making his mind go momentarily blank. He smiled, not trying to restrain it. "That's wonderful. Wonderful news."

"Yup." Buck was still grinning as he scooped up the last of his beans.

"Yup," Josiah said, and got to his feet. "Wonderful news. I'd better go. I've got a funeral to prepare for." He sighed.

"Try to get some sleep there, Josiah."

"I'll do that, Buck." He nodded and left.

Buck finished his breakfast and picked up his mug. He looked about to leave.

Ezra tried to be casual. "Nathan's confident, then, that Chris will recover?"

"Always chance of a setback, or infection flaring up again, but he's pretty sure Chris has got it beat."

"You saw Chris this morning? How was he?"

"Well, I just told you, hoss, the fever broke. He's better."

"Yes, but what does he look like?"

"Look like?" Buck regarded him as he might a strange creature that crawled out of a bog. "He looks like a puling day-old blind runt of a pup that's too weak to drag itself to its mama's teat and too ugly for anybody to care." He drained his mug and stood up. "Hell, anyone with a lick of sense would put him in a sack and drown him!" With a cheery wave, he strode out of the saloon.

:::::::

He devoted the day to doing his duty as a lawkeeper. On this day, the job meant sitting outside the jailhouse desperately trying to occupy himself between restless bouts of walking Four Corners from end to end and side to side. He wished the town were six times its size and ten times less peaceful. He longed for something to happen to disturb the peace he was grossly underpaid to help maintain. He tried to read more of Whitman's _Memoranda_ to make the time pass more quickly, but couldn't get past the passage he'd been on when JD told him about Chris.

How many days ago was it? Only two since he'd found out, three since Chris was shot? Three days of fever sapped a man's strength. Three days of fever could kill even a strong man.

He didn't go to the clinic and avoided looking at it. Time should be all that was required now for Chris to recover. He would see Chris when he was strong enough to go into public; no point now in possibly appearing out of character in trying to insinuate himself into the clinic. Everyone would expect him to carry on as normal and Ezra P. Standish didn't normally visit sickbeds.

He smiled wryly at the cards he was desultorily shuffling as he sat outside the jail late in the afternoon. He'd spent his adult life cultivating a "normal" facade so no one would think he was anything else. Perhaps it was apt he should now be trapped by his own careful construction.

:::::::

He spent the night with a bottle of bourbon. When he awoke in the morning stiff and cold from having dozed off in the rocking chair, he was surprised to find the bottle half full. He had a drink to get his day started and considered his unshaven visage in the mirror. Perhaps a bath was in order? The thought of the effort involved defeated him. It would be another day at least before Chris might reasonably emerge from the clinic; perhaps two more. Perhaps three or four before he was fit enough to circulate.

Three or four days before he could directly assure himself of Chris's state. It was tempting to leave town. If he did, though--the way matters were going lately--the place would probably blow up and there'd be more than a minor knife wound on his conscience.

Nothing better to occupy a long day than poker. A quick check of the town revealed JD back to his usual lively self and Buck and Vin spending less time in the clinic. After Mrs. Evans' funeral later that morning, Josiah would also be around in case of trouble. With a good complement of the lawmen on tap to keep order, the town would be fine without his attention. Ezra sank his mind into one game after another, savagely blocking out everything except the fall of the cards and his opponents' abilities.

He took a break at midday to visit the outhouse and have lunch. He didn't see JD in the back of the restaurant until he was seated and then it was too late to pretend he'd changed his mind. JD brought his plate over and chatted as he ate. The boy had an amazing ability to inhale food and talk at the same time. It took no skill to elicit the information that Chris was awake and grumpy, though also scarily weak and pale. It would have taken more skill than he presently possessed to stem JD's descriptions of Mary's visits, today's including Billy.

He excused himself when he'd blunted his appetite and returned to the saloon. He had the good fortune to find a cowpoke who was a better than average player, which required him to exert a smidgen of concentration to keep stringing the man along. With this godsend, he got through the rest of the day with a minimum of errant thoughts and retired an hour before closing to his half-bottle of Old Forester.

He was undressing when a knock sounded on the door. Startled, he stared at it, unable to imagine who would want to see him at this time of night and with no interest in finding out. Even if Chris had taken a turn for the worse, odds were no one would think of telling him until they saw him tomorrow. He ignored the knock.

He was pushing his suspenders off his shoulders when the door opened and Chris moved haltingly inside. Sweaty, pasty-faced, and hunched over, he was walking wounded in the flesh. He came in hanging onto the door with one hand while reaching for a handhold on the bedside table with the other. He kicked the door shut when he had the table to lean on and tottered to a seat on the side of the bed.

"Shit," he muttered, keeping his weight on his uninjured leg and pressing a hand against his side as he eased himself gingerly down.

"What on earth are you doing here?"

Chris waved his free hand in the air. Ezra looked at it for a bemused moment, then poured a shot of bourbon into a glass and put it into the hand. Chris downed it with a gasp. Some color came back to his face and he finally lifted his head.

"Damn, that's one bitching lot of stairs between my room and here."

"Your room? Why aren't you in the clinic?"

"Because I'm recovered. Didn't you hear?"

A bark of laughter escaped him. "You call this recovered?"

Chris smiled. "What I call this is not dying and not going to."

He drank in Chris's worn face, his thinned-down body, his undiminished vitality still manifest despite his weakness. He wanted nothing more than to go on feasting on the sight, but when he met Chris's smiling eyes and managed a smile of his own, Chris's gaze sharpened. Before Chris could say anything, Ezra pulled up his suspenders and turned away to the closet to get his coat.

"I'll help you back to the boardinghouse. You really should be in bed. I can't imagine what you were thinking, traipsing up here by yourself."

"Just get my boots."

"Boots?" He turned and saw Chris painfully easing his way out of his black jacket. His hat was sitting on the end of the bed. "What are you doing?"

"I'm going to bed."

"Not here."

Chris raised an eyebrow.

"You can't. They'll expect you to be in your room. Someone might check on you." He watched Chris undo the top buttons of his shirt. "Chris, you can't stay here." His stomach fluttered as panic threatened.

"I've walked all the stairs I intend to today. I'll leave in the morning. Just need a few hours' rest." Chris gave him another penetrating look and his voice gentled. "They're all in their beds--or, in Buck's case, somebody's bed--sleeping. I'm a big boy. No one's gonna check on me."

Since it was futile to try to stop Chris from doing whatever he set his mind on, he capitulated. With the fatalism Chris induced, he knew he was willing to risk the world, anyway, to have this night with him. He pulled off Chris's boots and eased him out of the rest of his clothes. The bandages wrapping his middle were stained at the left side, but the color was dark rust, not fresh blood. The ones around his right thigh were clean. Chris lay back on the pillow with a groan, his eyes sliding to half-mast.

He stood by the bed and touched a hand to Chris's stubbled cheek, assuring himself of the warmth of life and the coolness of health; reassuring himself that Chris was truly going to be all right. He studied the unprepossessing figure with starved eyes. Chris's dirty hair was sticking up in tufts. The lines around his eyes and mouth were deep and he looked every day of his forty-one years. A deep well of relief washed him with unmanning weakness; his fingers trembled against Chris's cheek before he snatched them away.

Chris caught his hand and tugged. "Get in bed. You look worse than I do."

That jolted a laugh out of him. "You clearly haven't seen yourself in a mirror, my friend."

He watched Chris while he removed the rest of his own clothes. Chris's eyes had fully closed, showing blue-veined lids and lashes dark against his pale cheeks. He tried not to jostle Chris as he climbed over him to lie on his uninjured side, but he heard the intake of breath. Chris waited until he settled, then pulled his head down to his shoulder. Ezra stroked the faint puckered scar from an old wound on Chris's left shoulder. Soon there'd be two new scars for him to learn the look and feel of on Chris's well-worn body. Chris needed a bath even more than he did. He closed his eyes and absorbed the rank smell of him, sweat and sickness mixed with the medicinal odor of salves. For the first time in three days, he felt the tension easing out of himself.

"Don't remember much from the last few days." Chris's voice was a low husky sound in the quiet room. "Remember seeing all the boys, though, along with a few others. All except you."

All the tension slammed back into him like a sucker punch.

He tried to pull away, but Chris's arm clamped him down. There wouldn't be any avoiding it until Chris got his answer.

"I wanted--" He licked his lips. "I tried to see you, but no one expected me to be terribly concerned about you. We've done a good job of hiding...everything. And I--" he moved so his ear was resting over Chris's heart "--was too afraid to push it in case someone thought it odd." He swallowed at a lump in his throat. "I'm sorry."

Sorry for being inadequate; sorry for being a coward; sorry for failing the one person he never wanted to fail.

After a silence during which he hoped Chris might let it go, Chris said, "What did you see, Ezra? A lynching? Stoning? Somebody tar-and-feathered? What'd you see that made you afraid?"

He closed his eyes, rebelling against invoking the gall of the memory. But Chris deserved an answer. He braced himself for the sting of old emotions, seeking refuge in being as clinical as possible.

"It was a flogging. They tied him to the scaffold and people pelted him with clots of dirt, stones, garbage and vegetables--anything they could lay their hands on. All through it, they reviled him, led by the preacher waving a Bible."

_If a man lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death._

"When they'd spent their first fury, they turned him around and tied him again and the blacksmith used a horsewhip on him. He held out at first, but screamed soon enough with each blow. When they were done, they drove him out of town wearing nothing but his boots and pants. From the back, he looked like he was wearing a red shirt."

Chris's hand cupped his head. "How old were you?"

"Seventeen. It was in a small town in the Nebraska territory. I was passing through on my way to meet Mother in Sioux City where she was coming in on the steamboat.

"He made a mistake, Chris. He approached the wrong person. That's all he did: just revealed himself to the wrong person."

_Men with men working that which is unseemly._

"I waited three hours, then left town and circled around to find him. He was half dead, trying to drag himself along. His back--" He faltered; Chris's hand moved to his shoulder, large and warm and steadying. "His back wasn't red anymore, but dark with flies. I got him into the woods, away from the road, and tended him the best I could in a cold camp. I was too afraid of attracting attention even to light a fire."

"He survive?"

He nodded his head against Chris's chest. "When he could travel, we shared my horse. They left him nothing, but he'd been on his way to a mine in Colorado that was hiring. I gave him a shirt and some money I won in the first town we reached and he headed west while I continued east."

He could see it all again, from the faces of ordinary people twisted into hideous masks to the man's back buzzing with flies.

"I already knew I was like him, though I didn't dare confide even in him. I knew the same thing could happen to me one day if I slipped, if I made a bad choice. I could be him one day. He thought I was just a normal kid, a bit more decent than most." He grinned humorlessly for an instant.

_And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another._

"The worst thing was the stoic way he accepted it as though it wasn't a surprise to be beaten almost to death for being what he was. He wasn't a young man. He was probably near Josiah's age, with a lot of gray in his beard, old as some of those people's grandfathers must have been. They beat him and left him with nothing and he didn't even have any anger left in him, just a kind of blank despair and acceptance. That's what scared me most of all. I saw my future that day and I hated it. I didn't want to end up like him, not half-killed for revealing myself and not alone and spiritless either."

Chris stroked his arm. "What do you want?"

The fury that had burned in him for years peaked. He flipped the blankets down and closed his hand around Chris's cock and balls. "I want not to want _this_."

Chris's hand darted down and fastened around his wrist with the speed of his lightning reflexes, though he grunted with the sudden movement. His fingers stayed wrapped around Ezra's wrist, but the grip was gentle. Ezra loosened his hand and stroked the soft skin of Chris's testicles.

"You don't need it, do you, Chris? Don't need a man's cock to excite you, to give you pleasure and satisfaction. You can get that just as well from a woman."

"Yeah."

He nodded. He reached for the covers, his hand slipping from Chris's light hold. He leaned down to kiss the quiescent genitals, then covered Chris. Chris caught him as he moved away and pulled his head back down to rest on his chest. Chris's hand settled on the nape of his neck. He was amazed Chris was still managing to stay awake. "You should get to sleep. It's getting late and you'll have to leave before dawn."

"Not needing ain't the same as not wanting, Ezra."

"I know." He felt again the wonder that Chris chose to be with him, at least for this while, when Chris didn't need to live concealed and isolated.

"Being careful's smart, but comes a time when trusting someone else might be smarter."

"The world has a score of names for men like me, Chris, most of them far less benign than Buck's 'funny cowboy.' Uranians; ganymedes; mandrakes; chestnut-gatherers; unisexuals; margeries and gal-boys. Inverts. Buggerantos." Even his honeyed accent couldn't blunt the harsh sound of the final word as he lingered over the syllables. "Men with 'improlific appetites' might not be entirely a bad thing in the view of thinkers like Mr. Bentham, but I doubt the idea of uranism as beneficial in reducing world over-population will ever become popular." He laughed. The sound was both harsh and wobbly. He cut it off.

Chris's hand tightened on his neck.

"It's hard to be sure, even with friends, who might...." Ezra trailed off, shrugging with helplessness.

After a long silent interval in which he thought Chris would be drifting toward sleep, Chris said, "There ain't no stopping folk from saying and thinking what they will. But what you are ain't such a bad thing that you need to hate yourself for it. There'll be enough of that from others."

Resentment flared toward Chris, who could choose not to be an invert any time he wanted, who could live a normal life and escape censure and hate and never know the debilitating effects of constant estrangement, loneliness, and guardedness. But his anger died as quickly as it rose. It was no more Chris's fault he was made as he was than it was his fault for being himself; he'd learned that lesson, at least, with maturity. He gentled a hand along Chris's bony hip under the covers. He wouldn't have Chris be other than exactly as he was. Even if it meant he'd one day lose him.

He closed his eyes.

"It'll be all right." Chris's callused fingers massaged his neck.

"Yes." He wouldn't think of the long-term; the lives of men like them weren't sensibly measured like that, anyway.

"Nothing's certain in this world, Ezra. Hell, nothing except maybe that the unexpected'll bite you on the ass. But I can't see nothing in the next while that's likely to take me on a different path from yours. We suit all right, for the most part." He paused for a beat. "Your annoying tendencies aside--but none of them have anything to do with what you get up to in bed."

Ezra gave a strangled laugh. "I suspect you're suggesting that if I'm hanged one day, it won't be for sodomy."

He felt more than heard a chuckle vibrate in Chris's breastbone under his ear. Chris's voice softened, burred with weariness and fading in strength. "Can't see any certainty ahead for either of us in this life except we're bitching sure gonna wake up tomorrow in this bed together. Reckon that'll do for now." His breath sighed out as his body relaxed into sleep.

Ezra lifted his head from Chris's chest. He made sure Chris was well covered and his body not chilled. He leaned across him to turn down the lamp and gathered Chris as close to himself as he could without disturbing him.

He slept.

:::::::

Chris sat on the boardwalk outside the jail enjoying the mild warmth of the sunshine as it slanted under the overhang across his body. Familiar footsteps approached. Vin dropped into the chair next to him with his long legs asprawl, slouched and comfortable. Chris acknowledged him with a flick of his eyes and received a minute nod in return before they settled into their undemanding companionship. Chris luxuriated in his returning health and strength. Vin's presence was its usual balm, expected and welcomed, just as it had been during most of his brief spells of awareness during his illness. Buck, too, had been a regular presence, and Nathan, of course. Josiah, JD, and Mary were less frequently there, but often enough for him to register their concern and support. And when he was over the worst, with the fever and delirium gone, even Billy had been brought to see him. The boy was fretting about him, Mary said, and needed to see for himself Chris was going to be all right. They'd all been worried, Nathan had said of his stream of visitors.

A stream notably barren of one person.

He shifted in his chair, reluctant to break the easy silence between them, but determined it be done.

"Need you to do something for me."

Vin glanced at him. He was heavy-lidded as he basked in the sun, but he was attentive, Chris knew, whatever he appeared to be.

"Want your word."

The quiet, understated attentiveness beside him notched up a degree as Vin noted and responded to the importance of the request, his body poised for what might be required. Satisfied he had Vin's full attention, he continued to speak while gazing across the dusty, sun-drenched street, his eyes more on the dark mouth of the alley opposite than on the saloon.

"If I take a bullet again, or get fevered like that, I want you to make sure Ezra's allowed in to see me."

From the corner of his eye, he could see Vin tense. After a moment, Vin pulled himself upright in the chair. His limbs straightened from their sprawl, the lean body exuding wariness as it took time to rearrange itself. Vin turned his head and looked at him; he almost thought he could feel heat on his cheek from the intensity of the measuring survey.

"Didn't know anything stopped him from seeing you this time."

"Nathan stopped him. Buck, too, maybe, I reckon. Just didn't think whatever Ezra might feel mattered as much as what the rest of you was feeling, or Mary and Billy."

He turned his head and met Vin's thoughtful eyes.

"I want your word on it you won't let that happen again. I don't care what anybody says, how much they throw their weight around, telling Ezra he'll be more use taking care of the jail duties and overseeing the town. I wanna know you'll see to it Ezra ain't kept out."

He stared into Vin's narrowed eyes for what seemed like minutes, though it must have been only seconds before Vin shot a look at the saloon before settling his eyes on the boardwalk at his feet. Chris went back to studying the dark maw of the alley.

"Seems like this is mighty important to you, pard," Vin finally drawled.

It wasn't necessary to answer; he could hear in Vin's even voice he'd guessed at the reason for it all. He reckoned Vin's sharp brain had already done its figuring and come to the obvious answer. Maybe he was busy right this minute remembering other small signs and adding them in, making himself a full picture in his head.

"You'll see to it?" He could hear the rasp in his own voice, the low intensity of it, the need he couldn't stop from leaching into his voice: the need for Vin to understand, for Vin not to reject them. The need to know Vin would be there if Ezra needed him in future.

"Yeah."

He relaxed, letting out a pent breath, and nodded. "All right, then."

He felt eased inside, knowing Vin had given his word with that brief affirmative, and Vin Tanner's word was more dependable than many men's oaths on a Bible.

Vin slouched in the chair again, his hat pulled low, his eyes possibly--Chris couldn't tell for sure--set on the saloon from under the wide brim. They sat in their usual companionable silence long enough for Chris, still tending to tire easily, to feel himself nodding off in the sunshine before Vin's quiet voice sounded again, light and amused and normal sounding.

"I hope this don't mean you're planning on getting shot again any time soon, cowboy. Dunno about anyone else, but I couldn't put up with looking at your sorry-ass face again as you lie in that bed looking like you can't decide whether to stay or go."

Before Chris could summon a response, his slitted eyes noted a bright figure pushing through the batwing doors across the street. He lifted his head and opened his eyes fully, not even pretending he wasn't watching. Ezra looked mighty fine this fair morning in a blue coat and silver brocade vest. The spring was back in his step. Chris could tell even from across the street that the darkness in and under his eyes was reduced. It still bothered him no one seemed to have noticed Ezra's deterioration, read the tells, small as they'd be, but knowing one other set of eyes would be watching over Ezra more carefully from now on buoyed him.

Ezra paused and looked at them. He touched his fingers to his shaped black hat, a smile curving his mouth, then turned and walked jauntily down the boardwalk, as casual as any casual citizen greeting two of the town's lawkeepers.

Chris smiled, and settled down for a nap with Vin on watch beside him.

"I ain't going nowhere, Tanner. Might as well get used to it."

The last thing he heard as he drifted off was a husky chuckle.

**Author's Note:**

> Walt Whitman's _Memoranda During the War_ was first published in 1875-76 by the author, Camden, NJ.


End file.
